RUDIMENTS, pt. 560
(burnin' ring of fire)
Traveling that trek every day I
always had a premonition that
maybe something horrible was
going to happen to me; run
down by a speeding, out of
control truck, smashed into
and sent careening. I tried to
be as careful as I could, and I
found the more I dwelt on the
idea, the worse it all got. I
became frozen in fear - and
it made me realize what
Franklin Roosevelt meant
when he said to the nation
(about the impending struggle
of Depression and WWII times)
that, 'We have nothing to fear
but fear itself.' Man, if that's
not true! People start just being
afraid of things to be afraid of.
They make monsters out of
moles and it's pretty much
imaginary; and then that
irrational aspect of things
grows and blossoms and
spreads and gets worse, and
takes over. Next thing you
know, you've got a nation
of crazies, all screaming and
hollering over every little
issue and thing. That's what
he had to prevent. He's just
lucky that soothing radio words
did it for him. Close call there.
-
A lot of people live like that,
torn asunder and wrecked by
all the irrational over-thinking
of chimeras (hazy things you
chase that never actually exist).
A chimera is like a mythological
animal made up of disparate parts,
head of a lion, breathing fire, tail
of a snake, and a goat head that
comes out the lion's side; all sorts
of odd things. And in Turkey,
there's a Mount Chimera, pretty
neat, where, for all time now,
fingers of fire have been coming
out of the Earth, at all time. From
fissures. We say 'Shimera'. The
Turks says 'Kaeymaer-a'. It sounds
better when they do it. But, in
any case, that's a lot like what
this irrational highway-fear was
and is like. Better to just drive
onward. It was some days all
I could do to keep it from
getting the best of me.
-
A few times I'd tarry myself;
come home a different way, ride
around a little. I visited Washington
Irving's house a few times, and
went back with my wife too, on
weekends, so she could see it.
It's a pretty cool place. It's
called Sunnsyside, and has a
nice amount of property, and
a really dignified, unique
architecture, befitting him, one
of America's first internationalists.
Writer of fame, diplomat, and
historian too. Dierdrich Knickerbocker
was one of his creations : an early,
Dutch New Yorker, and through
his eyes there are grand portrayals
and great stories of all the old
Nieuw Amsterdam, and than
Manahattan and New York stories.
-
A lot of rich guys and New York
industrialist types had their family
estates up there too, and all along
that corridor were once, and some
still are present, large estates and
crusty mansions. The banks of
the Hudson run all along here,
and at one point they all must
have had, with these houses, nice
estate-type river frontages; long
and sloping lawns down to the
riverside. BUT! You know how
those dollar-mongers are, the
Vanderbilts and all with their
trains and railroad fortunes -
at some point they laid track
and train stations all right along
the Hudson, and it's all still there,
Metro North, etc., and the trains
run and that's cut the river and
all the waterfront, by usurpation,
right out of these big manor homes.
I guess back then, whenever it was,
say 1870, just guessing, they all
had a pow-wow and were told
'We're taking your land and some
frontage' and that was that. I
guess they finagled them some
money, or they all had railroad
interests anyway, for gain, so
they agreed. The end result, I
never liked - not that it was ever
any of my business, mind you.
But how could these rich guys,
somehow in the name of pure
lucre and, perhaps, profit, so
willingly defame, or have
defamed, the very place where
they lived? (That's a question
one never is to ask in Avenel or
Woodbridge). In addition, did
they not have wives, with,
perhaps, taste and refinement?
Some with education and
knowledge? (Another question
not to be asked in Avenel
or Woodbridge). Were these
ladies just kept on, as erotic
punching bags and sexual
surrogates, for crime, lucre,
graft and affairs? (Please
don't ask that in Avenel, or
Woodbridge). So, Freddie,
and John and Teddy and Joan,
there's a railroad in your yard,
and now there are gay sprites
running along the lawn too.
-
One other thing, very germane,
that I saw in the country, was
that rivers and streams, etc., ran
freely and unfettered. That was
Nature, and no one pretended it
wasn't. You see, here they pretend
everything IS Nature, except they've
already destroyed what they call it
to be. That's how stupid they are.
I'd drive up towards Newark and
Elizabeth, and I'd see, in the towns and
cities, waterways in chutes. Concrete
chutes, right through the middle of
town - go up to Elizabeth, Linden,
Rahway, Woodbridge. Incredibly,
they have these concrete chutes,
with what purports to be their
self-named rivers running in
them like yellow sewers, and
they actually, as with pride,
IDENTIFY them for you! The
Woodbridge River! Elizabeth
River! Rahway River? Who
the Hell ever came up with
that stupid idea, and how do
these dickless wonder guys
live with themselves? I swear
I wonder why they don't all
have high voices.
-
One time, I'm nearing Carteret,
on the Turnpike, coming home
from bucolic 'Millwood' and
somewhere between the areas
Linden/Carteret and Woodbridge,
the traffic is suddenly dead meat.
Slowed to less than congestion;
a mealy, dead crawl. To my left,
a huge inferno is blazing - two
oil tanks, on the ground, those
big, circular storage jobs you
see everywhere, were blazing
themselves to Dante in a fury.
I wondered, how in the holy
Hell do they get away with
this shit, and why, oh Jesus,
are we put here but to be
tormented by others?
-
Parts of me always just wanted
to run right back up there, into
those hills, and stand there,
guarding my own world with
a shotgun. It had to be right,
and what we've done had to be
wrong. I pass these concrete
sluice-piped versions of rivers
in all these local towns around
me here, and just shake my head
at the incongruity of it all. In
Philadelphia, if you go visit
Carpenter's Hall, where the Articles
of Confederation were first written,
and then later confabs over the new
nation and constitution were held,
you can see how it was just a small,
cramped, wooden shed, basically. No
high-toned bullshit over risers and
elevated seating for those in control.
They'd have been punched in the head.
You can visit the Quaker Meeting Hall,
from where the earliest days of
Philadelphia affairs were managed,
and see strict, barren, bare seating
and benches. Again, no segregation
of the 'controllers' from those
controlled. Compare that to any
of the Boro, Town and City Halls
today - Woodbridge is a good
example - over-done top to
bottom, with a high-level table
for the short-haired (or bald)
business-suit terriers who think
they run the domain. Still picking
the ribs out of their teeth as they
try to talk. Say something.
-
Back in old Philly, they'd have
been rounded up and put in
stocks or pilloried, for people to
throw rocks at, or maybe even
piss upon. That was the sort of
self-evident, hardsquare and hardball
tactics meted out to the sorts of fake
people we get to deal with today.
Graves are dug for less. Millwood
made me think a lot about where I
lived. Tremley Point, for example, out
the east side, riverpoint of old Linden.
Used to be that was called Morse's Creek.
It was used all the time by the Royalists
who held that area, Elizabeth on down,
through Rahway. (The history books,
for instance, say 'Rahway saw little
action in the Revolution, because the
lands there was all considered a
Royalist stronghold). Morse's Creek
was big time stuff - a waterway of
varied dimensions, it now starts out
a cemetery and and just rolls over to
pure shit once you (try) to get to the
ownership properties of the refineries,
fuel and petrochemical plants, and
such that own it. Off-limits, and you
are nothing. The Turnpike itself plops
right through all this, what should be
holy land but which we have despoiled.
When I say we I do NOT include myself,
because I'd not be one of them. Back
then I'd have been a night marauder,
with musket and sword, maiming
and killing all I could. You could
get away with that then. You can't
now; because they've taken over.
-
Morse's Creek is a foul nothing now; you
can't even access (I've tried numerous
times). There are eventual end points
and gates for all the little roads that
wind out through there, that end up at
check-points or tanker-truck yards with
no access. Unlike Millwood, we don't
even own our access to our own land
and coast any longer. I hardly know
what any of those poor guys were
fighting over 300 years ago. The
books say they won. I say
they sure as Hell lost.
-
Parts of me always just wanted
to run right back up there, into
those hills, and stand there,
guarding my own world with
a shotgun. It had to be right,
and what we've done had to be
wrong. I pass these concrete
sluice-piped versions of rivers
in all these local towns around
me here, and just shake my head
at the incongruity of it all. In
Philadelphia, if you go visit
Carpenter's Hall, where the Articles
of Confederation were first written,
and then later confabs over the new
nation and constitution were held,
you can see how it was just a small,
cramped, wooden shed, basically. No
high-toned bullshit over risers and
elevated seating for those in control.
They'd have been punched in the head.
You can visit the Quaker Meeting Hall,
from where the earliest days of
Philadelphia affairs were managed,
and see strict, barren, bare seating
and benches. Again, no segregation
of the 'controllers' from those
controlled. Compare that to any
of the Boro, Town and City Halls
today - Woodbridge is a good
example - over-done top to
bottom, with a high-level table
for the short-haired (or bald)
business-suit terriers who think
they run the domain. Still picking
the ribs out of their teeth as they
try to talk. Say something.
-
Back in old Philly, they'd have
been rounded up and put in
stocks or pilloried, for people to
throw rocks at, or maybe even
piss upon. That was the sort of
self-evident, hardsquare and hardball
tactics meted out to the sorts of fake
people we get to deal with today.
Graves are dug for less. Millwood
made me think a lot about where I
lived. Tremley Point, for example, out
the east side, riverpoint of old Linden.
Used to be that was called Morse's Creek.
It was used all the time by the Royalists
who held that area, Elizabeth on down,
through Rahway. (The history books,
for instance, say 'Rahway saw little
action in the Revolution, because the
lands there was all considered a
Royalist stronghold). Morse's Creek
was big time stuff - a waterway of
varied dimensions, it now starts out
a cemetery and and just rolls over to
pure shit once you (try) to get to the
ownership properties of the refineries,
fuel and petrochemical plants, and
such that own it. Off-limits, and you
are nothing. The Turnpike itself plops
right through all this, what should be
holy land but which we have despoiled.
When I say we I do NOT include myself,
because I'd not be one of them. Back
then I'd have been a night marauder,
with musket and sword, maiming
and killing all I could. You could
get away with that then. You can't
now; because they've taken over.
-
Morse's Creek is a foul nothing now; you
can't even access (I've tried numerous
times). There are eventual end points
and gates for all the little roads that
wind out through there, that end up at
check-points or tanker-truck yards with
no access. Unlike Millwood, we don't
even own our access to our own land
and coast any longer. I hardly know
what any of those poor guys were
fighting over 300 years ago. The
books say they won. I say
they sure as Hell lost.
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